“Do you think they’re all dead?” Cyrus asked. “That these monsters killed them all?”
“My instincts from fighting these beasts when we clashed with them tells me yes,” Unger said with a nod, “every man, woman, child and animal that remained in that village is dead.” He kept an even expression. “But I’d surely like to be proven wrong.”
“You intend us to move directly toward it?” Cyrus asked. “Or perhaps have something more subtle in mind?”
“We have an army in place in the valley east of here,” Unger said. “Not the full force available to me—that’s lurking a little south of Scylax, gathering along with additional conscripts we’re pulling from the reaches of the Kingdom—but a decent-sized force of five thousand or so that is battle-hardened. We’ll meet up with them and probe north a little, see how firmly dug in these blighters are.”
“They didn’t look capable of doing much digging,” Cyrus said wryly.
“Aye, but they come in force, making digging in irrelevant. They overwhelm you with numbers, crush you under the weight of so many of them.” Unger shook his head. “I have my doubts about doing this with five thousand, but it’s a fraction of what we’ve thrown at them so far.”
“How many men have died thus far?” Cyrus asked.
“I fought them with ten thousand men,” Unger said. “We met them on bad ground—for them, not us. They kept coming until I called the retreat, and never once did they show hesitation, even when the ground was covered with their dead.”
They moved east once out of the pass, down to some even ground, using a forest for cover as they left the road, the pace slowing as they made their way along a line avoiding the village by giving it a wide berth.
“Our men will be encamped a few miles from here,” Unger said.
“Are you sure they’re still there?” Cyrus asked. “I mean, if these things are as bad as you say they are, what’s to stop them from sortieing out and slaughtering your men?”
Unger chuckled. “Nothing, I suppose, but they won’t have gotten this army without a fight. So far they don’t seem to do much sortieing; they come in force, move in on a town, and swarm it. They sit there for a while after, like nothing’s happening … if you look at the town from a distance, you’ll see them … not exactly making merry, because these things don’t ever look happy, but they wander the streets, almost as though they’re strutting around their new conquest.” Unger bared his teeth in a feral grimace. “Bastards.”
They came up over a rise and stopped, all in a line, and Cyrus’s eyes widened in shock. Unger cursed, again, louder this time, and Cyrus made a gesture for him to shut up, which the King of Syloreas did, oddly enough. “Bastards,” Unger said quietly. “Bloody bastards. It would appear you were right.”
“I don’t want to be right,” Cyrus said. “I want to be wrong.”
The rise led down to an empty, flat plain, hidden from the sight of the village of Pinrade, still several miles away. A full-fledged camp had been set up in the area—and it was completely, utterly destroyed. Tents were shredded, pieces of their occupants strewn over bloody ground. Bodies were scattered all over the site, both humans and the creatures that Unger called the scourge, their grey, pallid and naked flesh obvious against the clothed and more pink human bodies.
“No campfires,” Terian said from next to Cyrus.
“They were told not to build any,” Unger said, still seething. “These were experienced men. They knew how to keep out of sight.”
“If that was a village of men in the distance,” Cyrus said, “you wouldn’t have thought it possible to keep an army out of their sight, not for weeks at a time. What made you think you could do it with these creatures?”
“Because they’re animals!” Unger shouted, his words echoing across the slaughter below. “They’re not men, these things, they’re less than criminals, they’re beasts, fit to be harnessed to a plow and forced to rip the ground of our fields. They’re mindless, thoughtless animals, lower in mean intelligence than a dog, and worth less in value of life than fifty mutts.”
“And apparently possessed of the same instincts,” Terian said, “if they tracked your people down and wiped them out.”
“Aye,” Unger said. “And I’ll kill them like a rabid one, without mercy or emotion.”
They wandered down the hill among the dead. Cyrus watched as the horses snorted, their exhalations sending little clouds of breath into the cold air. That’s life, the surest sign in this chill, someone’s breath fogging the air around them. He looked at the destruction around them. And there’s none here. “Curatio?” Cyrus called.
“I will try,” the healer said as they reached the bottom of the hill, “but don’t hold out much hope; it looks as if they’ve been dead for some time.”
“Answer me this question, then,” Terian said, “without an army at our backs, what’s the likelihood we’ll be able to take on whatever horde of beasts did this to them?”
“Not as good as if we had an army at our backs,” Cyrus said as Windrider picked his way around the debris and bodies. “Why do you ask questions that you already know the answer to?”
“Rhetorical,” Terian said. “Well, rhetorical and practical. Because, you see, those things,” and the dark knight raised his hand and pointed to the ridgeline above them, “they seem to be watching us.”
Cyrus cursed and drew his sword, dismounting from Windrider and slapping the horse on the backside after aiming him in a direction where there were no visible signs of the scourge. “Oldest trick in the book, isn’t it? They set a trap for us.”
“Stupid creatures,” Briyce Unger said, unslinging a mighty spiked mace from his back, so grand in scale that it looked to Cyrus almost as tall as the man himself and with spikes longer than a child’s forearm, “they’re not smart enough to do anything so sinister. They must have heard us approach.”
“You keep denigrating their intelligence,” Cyrus said, “but we’re the fools, the hundred of us, up against however many of them.”
They were situated in a neat bowl-shaped depression in the ground, with hills surrounding them and the mountain rising behind them. The only avenue of retreat was the way they had come. To their left was an oppressive rise, a hill that backed to a steep series of cliffs, behind them was the north slope of the mountain they had just avoided by taking the pass back to the east. Before them, strung along the hillside for a mile or more, was a waiting line of the scourge, the creatures on all fours, moving only slightly, in position, watching from the top of the hill. They could be here in thirty seconds, fall upon us in great number and force a conflict, Cyrus thought. “Why do they wait?”
“They fear us,” Unger said, clutching his mace and remaining atop his steed. “And they rightly should. Their numbers look small, weak. Perhaps they’re all that remains after my men destroyed many of them.”
“You seem far too sharp a battlefield commander to be taken in by bluster,” Cyrus said, trying to keep any recrimination or reproach from his tone. “Why don’t we assume the worst, and if it’s better than we think, we’ll be no worse off?”
Unger cursed behind him, and Cyrus heard the King of Syloreas let out a grim hiss. “Too right. Assume the worst. Perhaps they’re surrounding us? Setting us up for another hammer to fall?”
“They could be trying to draw us in,” Longwell said from beside Cyrus, still atop his horse, spear in hand. “You might do better fighting from horseback, especially with their disadvantage in height.”
“I’ve always been rubbish at fighting on horseback,” Cyrus said, “and with Praelior, believe me when I say you want me on the ground. I’m more dexterous and maneuverable than Windrider and faster to boot.”
“You’re also more vulnerable,” Terian said, “but that’s really more your issue than mine.”
“I will try to keep you all healed and protected,” Curatio said, “but against these numbers and with only one other healer to aid me, this could get fairly dirty, fairly
fast.”
Cyrus twirled Praelior in a circle from his hand, catching hold of it and pointing it toward the hilltop where the scourge still waited, making little noise and moving even less. “I didn’t think keeping it clean was going to be an option.”
Cyrus felt movement behind him and turned to see Aisling dismounted, standing just behind his shoulder. “I’m not much use on horseback, either.”
“We could use a wizard or five right now,” Cyrus said, and then saw Mendicant’s pony step into line next to Curatio, the goblin’s scaly skin glistening in the cold morning light. “I suspect you’ll do well enough, Mendicant.”
“As well as I can,” the small goblin said, his claws looking particularly pointed. “I can put up a wall of flame twenty feet across when they charge, but I won’t be able to maintain it for more than thirty seconds or so; after that, I’ll be forced to engage one on one—or perhaps heave some fireballs into dense concentrations of the enemy.”
“Do what you can,” Cyrus said, feeling the tension flood him. “It seems they’re waiting for something, and that concerns me.”
“Another wave to flank us?” Terian asked, “reinforcements from the village? I wish they’d get to it.”
The sun was too bright, Cyrus thought, seeing the light shine off the armor in the formation around him. Only a few had chosen to dismount; Briyce Unger’s men remained on horseback, and besides Aisling, two veteran warriors of Sanctuary as well as Scuddar In’shara were the only others who had chosen to fight on foot. Scuddar looked particularly lethal, his robes a crimson red, his scimitar spinning in his hands in a display of swordsmanship that Cyrus never found less than impressive.
A wind kicked up around them as they stared across the hilly no man’s land between them and the scourge on the hill. Cyrus kept his eyes moving, looking left to the ridgeline, then behind him again, for any sign of another attack, for any idea of what might be delaying the creatures charge.
“Will anyone feel bad if we just charge them and get it over with?” Briyce Unger asked.
“I’ll feel bad if we do it and they sideswipe us with a flanking attack we ran voluntarily into,” Terian said.
“I’ll feel worse if we die of old age while waiting for their attack,” Curatio said, “and for me, that’s saying something.”
“J’anda,” Cyrus said, “I suspect you’re about to have to find out if these things can be mesmerized.”
“I was planning to try,” the enchanter said. “Failing that, perhaps I can take charge of a few and disturb their formation to start things off?”
“Can a spell even reach them out there?” Terian asked.
“For most, it would be impossible,” J’anda said, closing his eyes and raising a hand. “For me, it is merely another day.” A glow wrapped his fingers, a greenish-blue hue that encompassed him, and his eyes snapped open. “Oh. My. Oh, gods. This is … they are not mindless beasts. Not at all.” J’anda’s eyes widened and the enchanter let out a long, gasping exhale that clouded the air in front of him. “This … unfathomable … they … ahhhh …” His eyes rolled back in his head, he shuddered and shook in the saddle as Cyrus ran between the horses that separated them while the animals began to snort, shuffling back and forth on their hooves. The sounds of the horses took on an eerie quality, being the only noise audible other than the crackling voice of the flailing enchanter.
Cyrus reached J’anda’s side and grabbed him by the robes, jarring the dark elf. His eyes snapped open and looked down at Cyrus, wide, the enchanter’s usually unflappable calm gone. His breaths came in deep, rattling bursts, as though he were cold and winded, ragged in his breathing as his thin shoulders rose and fell in poor time. His eyes locked on Cyrus and they were wild, filled with undefinable emotion, as though the enchanter’s mind were overwhelmed.
“J’anda?” Cyrus asked, dragging the dark elf’s eyes to him. Cyrus could see the bloodshot element to them, the red, strained look that they carried. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” J’anda breathed, “and no. Not all right at all. They’re … you would not believe what they are.” He reached down and clutched Cyrus’s shoulder. “Who they are.” J’anda pushed off, balancing back on his horse and moving away from Cyrus. “They are not fools. They are not beasts. And they are not mindless.”
“Who are they?” Cyrus asked, spellbound by the enchanter’s seeming breakdown.
“Not now,” J’anda breathed. “Not now … I cannot even explain it, not now.”
“Why not?” Terian interrupted, and the dark knight’s eyes and voice burned with impatience. “What’s got you so addled?”
“Addled?” J’anda asked with a laugh, a loud, high, demented one. “You don’t know. Of course you don’t, you couldn’t. And it doesn’t matter right now, anyway, because we have to run.” The crazed amusement fled his face and he looked Cyrus straight in the eye. “We have to run, we have to leave now. We might stand a chance if we hurry, if we fly back to the pass.”
“What the blazes is going on here, J’anda?” Cyrus asked. “What are you talking about? What are these things? What is wrong with you?”
“I saw,” J’anda whispered. “I looked into the mind of one of them when I charmed him and I saw—what they are. Who they were. What they’ve been through. And I know,” he said hoarsely, “I know. And something else, too—” He looked away, stunned, frightened, back to the hill where they waited, still, staring down at the expedition.
“That more of them are coming—enough to destroy us all. And they’ll be here in moments.”
Chapter 33
“Start moving,” Cyrus said in a tone of low dread. “Everybody start heading back the way we came.” No one moved, and Cyrus felt the pressure building internally, and it exploded out of him in a shout. “What are you waiting for? He told us they’re coming, MOVE!”
With that, some of the Syloreans broke ranks and began a run up the hill from whence they had come, a few of the reluctant Sanctuary members following just behind. Curatio hesitated, as did Longwell, and Cyrus waved them in the direction of the hill as he tried to find Windrider in the chaos that was breaking around them. “This isn’t a moment to stand here and die, get moving!”
“Not leaving you here until you’re saddled and going, sir,” Longwell said, and Curatio nodded as well. Terian, too, lurked with them, along with Mendicant. “This isn’t a time to be leaving anybody behind.”
Cyrus watched the others who had dismounted with him, climbing up into their saddles, and he looked for Windrider. Cyrus was surrounded, the Syloreans breaking around him, cutting him off from the direction he knew the horse had run. He heard a familiar whinny from behind the line of retreating Sylorean horses, but to cross them now would mean trampling, injury, unintentional death. He waited until the last of them stampeded past, and Windrider thundered to him. He slung a foot in the stirrup and jumped, sliding onto the saddle as his horse took off, trying to lead the way for the others.
“They’re moving now,” Longwell shouted.
Cyrus turned to see it was true, that the beasts on the hill—the scourge, as he’d come to think of them—were coming down in great numbers. “J’anda looks to have been right,” Cyrus said. “They got some reinforcements.”
A flood of them came as Cyrus and the others galloped, hugging the trail and following the Syloreans ahead of them as they hurried their way back toward the pass. The creatures of the scourge were behind him, Cyrus saw, waiting for trouble to descend, but it seemed as though they were losing them. The creatures, unable to keep up with the speed of the horses, were falling back as Cyrus and the others were pressing ahead.
Cyrus kept to the rear of the column, a little distance between him and the others in front of him. He felt a sudden cold, clammy chill run over his body but ignored it, continuing to hold tight to Windrider’s reins as the horse raced along, fast enough to keep up with those in front of him but keeping an eye on the enemies coming from behind.
“Cyrus,�
�� Terian’s voice came from beside him, low, hushed, barely audible over the hoofbeats. Cyrus turned and the dark knight was there, riding next to him, the nearest person ahead of him by at least ten feet. Behind Terian, to Cyrus’s left, another swarm of the scourge was emerging from the woodline a few hundred feet behind the dark knight. Cyrus made to exclaim, already pointing, but Terian said, “I know. I saw them coming. We can outrun them on horseback. But I need to tell you something.”
“What?” Cyrus asked, and he realized that he was sweating, an unusual feeling for such a cool day. His mouth was dry, papery, as though someone had poured sand into it, and his voice came out scratchy, so low he could barely hear it himself.
“You’ve been afflicted with a curse,” Terian said as Cyrus felt at his throat, trying to discern the nature of his own malady. “You’ll feel the fever in a moment, and the seering pain will start shortly thereafter. You may scream,” Terian said, eyes cold, “but because of your throat, no one’s going to hear you. I want you to know that this isn’t personal, not really.” Cyrus stared at him blankly, disbelieving, as Terian continued. “You killed my father on that bridge in Termina, and for a dark elf, that means vengeance. It has to be taken. I swore a vow and performed a soul sacrifice to become who I am, and I can’t just let it go, not that easily. I do want to thank you, though,” Terian said, drawing his sword. “I doubt I would have ever gotten this back if you hadn’t brought it to me.” Terian’s eyes flicked forward, and his sword darted out and hit Windrider across the neck.
The geyser of blood from the horse hit Cyrus in the face, a slap of wetness so quick and brutal that he didn’t even realize it had happened until it had. The next strike was even more brutal as Terian slapped him across the face with the dull edge of the blade. Windrider was already falling, skidding in the dirt and Cyrus felt himself lift off upon impact, cartwheeling end over end in the dirt and grass, his head hitting, then dull impacts along his shoulders and back as he rolled. The horse’s weight settled on his leg and he felt the bone break, but the pain was muted, somewhere far in the back of his head, beyond the pain in his face, his body, and the desire to just sleep.
Crusader: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Four Page 36
